Pablo Picasso

(Probably) Acquired circa 1960s

Werner Spies, Picasso Sculpteur, Paris, 2000, no. 533, p. 417, illustrated p. 381
The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. The Fifties II, 1956-1959, San Francisco, 2000, no. 57-182, p. 171, illustrated

Minor surface dirt. Rubbing to patina on bottom and tips of the wings. Minor spots of corrosion in back of head, top of back, and below bird's right eye. There is also minor corrosion inside the bottom identation. Otherwise, very good condition.
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Picasso's fondness for animals was well-known, and images of cats, goats, bulls and birds appear frequently in his art.  In Life with Picasso, Françoise Gilot writes, "Pablo loved to surround himself with birds and animals.  In general they were exempt from the suspicion with which he regarded his other friends.... The pigeons cooed but the two turtledoves really laughed.  They were small grayish-pink with a darker ruff around the nexk.  Every time we went into the kitchen to eat and Pablo launched into one of his characteristic long semiphilosophical monologues, the turtledoves would be all attention.  Just at the moment he made his point, they would start to laugh" (Françoise Gilot, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, pp. 144-45).   

Throughout 1957, the year the present work was conceived, Picasso depicted numerous images of birds in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, lithography, clay, and bronze. 

 

Fig. 1 The artist
Fig. 2 Pablo Picasso, Les Pigeons, oil on canvas, 1957, Private Collection